Motivational Growth Review Should I See A Doctor

Motivational Growth needs to keeping growing or at least the director does. A film where bathroom fungus, voiced by Jeffrey Combs (weird characters on JLU, Re-Animator) talks to a dysfunctional man, Ian Folivor (Adrian DiGiovanni), who hasn't left his apartment in months. After his TV, Kent, Ian named it, has died, it sets Ian on a suicide attempt which drops him to the level of bathroom scum, literally falling to the floor of his bathroom in his suicide attempt. He meets a talking growth that's formed on his bathroom cabinet and wall. The Growth, as it demands to be called, tell Ian it wants to help him. As far as things go in the film it seems like very bad help.

The film has Ian carry out simple tasks by The Growth that seem to both help him and hurt him. That and quirky characters show up from time to time, all that seem more exciting then Jack, I mean Ian.

Growth grows on you at the start with it's quirky nature, but becomes a festering annoyance towards it's middle and end.  The problem is we don't get a deep foot hold in reality. Not always a bad thing, but at a point the story gets so convoluted on what's real and what's not or inside Ian's mind that it's hard to keep caring or paying attention.

One problem I had is I cared more for the video game scenes and TV shows than the actual main story. Scenes transition with Ian blacking out and entering TV shows and commercials he was watching. TV shows that would never be allowed on air with so much cussing going on in them. Yoga instructors usually don't say, "Let that shit out." I'd much rather watch and play Starr Mazer then see a few seconds of it on Jack, I mean Ian's old television from the 60's.

Sorry, about the replacing Jack with Ian. I just watched the film and The Growth kept referring to Ian as Jack. A fun running gag used in the movie.

See the banter between Jack and the Fungus can be fun, but at some points it gets repetitive and annoying. Same goes with the breaking-the-fourth-wall Jack, I mean Ian talking to us about his life and little bits of trivia. Those scenes can get on your nerves.


The growth talks like a 1920's mobster who messed up his meds, messing up sayings. Ian on the other hand is in some kind of haze and doesn't understand people joking around with him. He barely understands what The Growth is spouting.

Unlike other horror films from the 80's with a rube and a monster or demon telling them what to do, Jack talks back quite often to the gross green, no-eyed, toothy growth near his toilet.

Forgetting the growth, I was more into the commercial of Starr Mazer, a fictional game that's on a fictional console  that combined a space shooter with an RPG that looked like it was from LucasArts, g-d rest their soul. That with other scenes where Ian's apartment get transposed into the game made me want to be playing that game or watching an animated film instead. The jumps from television show to show with one being a cop alien makes you want more moments of Ian flipping through his mind and channels.

A commercial for Baddpaddz, silicon you wrap around your thumbs to keep playing, was a joke only Game Genie and gamers would get. A big blue Genie tell teenagers what to do in the commercial. It makes  you want to go over those scenes and leave out the scenes where growth shot out deadly poisoned darts or hacking a food delivery girl in the tub. Someone got acid to the face too, only minor moments that could have been expanded.

Dialogue in this is written with little care of trying to be more than funny. Sometimes it's just poorly worded weirdness, not all coming from The Growth. Leia, the love interest-yeah the movie has that- says at one point to Ian, "So, I'm not worried your going to come shooting out of your little Hobbit hole and rape me until I sh*t a mouse." Leia, who we never find out exactly what she does, but seems to be a college student, is not a skank or whore found at a rest stop. She's a good looking girl who suddenly spouted that.

Talk of breaking a monkey's arm and other short burst from guests once again could have tied better into the film. There's some great snips of dialogue that would have sound better coming out of Jessie Eisnenberg than Ian.

Motivational Growth is too artsy or out there for an average horror film enthusiast to like with a lack of planned murder or The Growth having a specific goal. It's like a first year film students taking on Little Shop of Horror's minus the music. Cameos of colorful characters sprinkled in with a frustrating loser lead. A boastful creature handing out commands with a commanding voice. It's Little Shop of Horrors trapped in a small apartment.

Motivation Growth doesn't make our Halloween list as it doesn't directly qualify as horror; more as a weird film to stalk at night.

Special effects and gross out scenes show that director, Don Thacker, is capable of making a horror film, he should have made one. You'll love seeing Ian drink out of a growth tit in the wall. Don just... and I write this often, shouldn't have written it.

Motivational Growth is an early work piece from Don Hacker, that is sometimes gross. As a film with talking bathroom grime would be, and weird fantasy. Don needs to learn what was missing, a plot that went somewhere.

Now go make Starr Mazer.

9/30 - Digital VOD Release (Worldwide)

10/7 - Blu-ray & DVD (U.S.)

11/11 - Cable VOD Release (U.S.)